A Travesty Of Justice

A National out­cry erupt­ed in the black com­mu­ni­ty after Darren Wilson fired 12 shots at 18 year-old Michael Brown killing him on the spot in Ferguson Missouri. A Federal inquiry was com­menced, par­al­lel local inves­ti­ga­tions were sup­pos­ed­ly underway.
Now I am not a Lawyer,so I defer to the legal lumi­nar­ies on this, but I do believe local and fed­er­al author­i­ties do share what infor­ma­tion they gather.

I also believe that both fed­er­al and local should be after the same thing, justice.
You see I ask these ques­tions because at the off­set one of the Ferguson com­mu­ni­ty’s com­plaint was that they want­ed St Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch off the case. Several elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and reg­u­lar res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ty argued that McCulloch had a record of par­tial­i­ty toward the police.

In fact they argued that he was over­ly chum­my and def­er­en­tial to law enforce­ment. They point­ed to the fact that.
(1 Robert McCulloch’s father was a police Officer.
(2 That his father was killed, alleged­ly by a black assailant.
(3 That there are sev­er­al oth­er glar­ing instances where Police have killed or oth­er­wise abused mem­bers of the black com­mu­ni­ty and McCulloch has been neg­li­gent in pros­e­cut­ing any officer.

As a result of the fore­gone they stat­ed he could not be trust­ed to be fair, impar­tial or dili­gent in bring­ing jus­tice to this case, in which they thought clear­ly, a crim­i­nal act was com­mit­ted by the cop.
Bob McCulloch refused to recuse him­self from the process, a move which would have paved the way for an inde­pen­dent pros­e­cu­tor to col­lect, Marshall and present the evi­dence to an impar­tial grand jury, so that jus­tice would be served.

Such a move would have tak­en from the com­mu­ni­ty any poten­tial alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety, neg­li­gence or lack of due dili­gence it would lev­el at pros­e­cu­tors pur­su­ing the Investigations.
Residents demand­ed that Governor , Jay Nixon step in and remove McCulloch in order that there may be trans­paren­cy and more impor­tant­ly con­fi­dence in the process.
Jay Nixon cow­ard­ly or duplic­i­tous refused to remove McCulloch.

Bob McCulloch open­ly crit­i­cized Jay Nixon the Governor for bring­ing in a State Police Captain to take over secu­ri­ty after vio­lence erupt­ed over the shoot­ing. He open­ly chal­lenged the Governor to remove him and replace him with a spe­cial prosecutor.
McCulloch must have known that the Governor did not have the balls to do whats right. He must have cal­cu­lat­ed that Nixon’s cow­ardice would grant him cov­er to do what he wanted.
McCulloch com­menced the process, then dumped all of the crap he col­lect­ed at the feet of the 12 per­son grand-jury.

It should be not­ed that it required 9 mem­bers of the 12 per­son jury to indict.
Quite by coin­ci­dence McCulloch’s grand-jury just hap­pened to have had a veto-proof 9 whites and 3 token blacks [sic].
McCulloch has always main­tained that he was impar­tial, that he would col­lect the evi­dence and present it all to a grand jury so the jury could make a deci­sion which would absolve him of any wrongdoing.
The only prob­lem with McCulloch’s asser­tions is, that is not what is required of a com­pe­tent pros­e­cu­tor who wants an indictment.

Grand jury pro­ceed­ings are much more relaxed than nor­mal court room pro­ceed­ings. There is no judge present and fre­quent­ly there are no lawyers except for the pros­e­cu­tor. The pros­e­cu­tor will explain the law to the jury and work with them to gath­er evi­dence and hear tes­ti­mo­ny. Under nor­mal court­room rules of evi­dence, exhibits and oth­er tes­ti­mo­ny must adhere to strict rules before admis­sion. However, a grand jury has broad pow­er to see and hear almost any­thing they would like. 

It should also be not­ed, that it is pure­ly up to the pros­e­cu­tor what he/​she presents to the grand-jury. Grand jury pro­ceed­ings are kept in strict confidence. 
(1 It encour­ages wit­ness­es to speak freely and with­out fear of retaliation.
(2 It pro­tects the poten­tial defen­dan­t’s rep­u­ta­tion in case the jury does not decide to indict.
So we are good right? 
A Prosecutor who wants a poten­tial killer brought to jus­tice is going to active­ly pur­sue a path with the grad-jury that will give him/​her the best chance at an indict­ment right?
But what if the Prosecutor real­ly only want the appear­ance that he/​she is doing his/​her job?
What is the for­mat, how is evi­dence , argu­ments , tes­ti­monies pre­sent­ed? Is it done in a way that makes it impos­si­ble for the grand ‑jury to indict?
Remember that the grand ‑jury process is sup­posed to be secret for the rea­sons laid out above. So what made Bob McCulloch decide to do a doc­u­ment dump on the pub­lic by releas­ing all of the tes­ti­monies to the public?
In fact with a Federal inves­ti­ga­tions ongo­ing why would the pros­e­cu­tor come out and berate the very wit­ness­es who he as the pros­e­cut­ing Attorney depend­ed on to gain an indictment?
To gain a Federal Indictment the stan­dard is even high­er than that which a local grand-jury need­ed to indict. 
So why did Bob McCulloch come out lam­poon­ing the very wit­ness­es both his office and the Feds need­ed for a poten­tial prosecution.
Well let me allow you to lis­ten to Bob McCulloch in per­son then we continue.

You see there are times when peo­ple do things and they pre­tend that all is above board. 
It’s not too dif­fi­cult to miss things if you aren’t pay­ing attention.
Here’s the truth, these peo­ple have zero respect for the black community.
They con­trol pow­er, this is insti­tu­tion­al­ized racist pow­er which allows them to game the sys­tem while mak­ing it seem to an unsus­pect­ing sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion that they are doing all they can to deliv­er jus­tice when they are actu­al­ly doing the exact opposite.

The Prosecutor in the case has a duty to present the evi­dence which will lead the grand ‑jury to the result he/​she wants. 
If how­ev­er the Prosecutor does not real­ly want an offend­er indict­ed the pros­e­cu­tor can present the evi­dence in a way that cast doubt on the wit­ness­es and even present an inor­di­nate amount of what appears to be excul­pa­to­ry evidence.
Let me pause here because the legal hawks are going to jump in and remind me that it is only fair that excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence is presented.
I agree , in the inter­est of jus­tice it should be presented.
However the duty of the grand-jury is not to decide inno­cence or guilt, it is mere­ly to decide that a defen­dant has a case to answer.

When asked whether there was any­thing he could have done dif­fer­ent­ly that would have pre­vent­ed that killing from hap­pen­ing? Darren Wilson repeat­ed­ly said .
No.
I did my job!
No emo­tions, no remorse,no sor­row, cold dispatch.
Yet revealing.
This is the way they are trained nowa­days it appears, weapon or not , lethal force is justified.

Justice can­not be one-sided, or lopsided.
It can­not be what you say it is , it must be what all peo­ple say it is.
It can­not be that a white man pre-med­i­tat­ed­ly ambush cops, killing one and injur­ing anoth­er, at a Barrack in Pennsylvanian and is arrest­ed with­out being shot or oth­er­wise harmed 6 weeks lat­er. While Christopher Dorner,ex mil­i­tary, ex-cop who did basi­cal­ly the same thing was burned to a cin­der in the California mountains.

There are just too many instances of this for peo­ple of sound mind to turn away any longer.
As my nephew a young police offi­cer said recently.
Quote
Not all cops are bad.
Not all whites are racist.
Not all black peo­ple are criminals.
There are some peo­ple who speak about these issues with­out the ben­e­fit of know­ing what it feels like to be black in America.
This is not a prob­lem cre­at­ed by black people.
It is a prob­lem cre­at­ed and per­pet­u­at­ed by wicked and igno­rant peo­ple for over four hun­dred years.
The end of that era of un-earned priv­i­lege and oppres­sion is com­ing to an end.
Before you speak on these issues walk awhile in a black man’s shoes.